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Friday, 5 October 2012

Birthday

The earliest known example of writing in Latin by a woman is a birthday invitation from 100 AD.

The earliest known reference to a ‘birthday cake’ was in 1785.

Instead of a birthday cake, many children in Russia are given a birthday pie.

The Chinese celebrate their birthdays only once every ten years.

Jehovah's Witnesses don't celebrate birthdays because the only two accounts of birthday parties in the Bible ended in murder.

Shirley Temple received 135,000 presents on her 8th birthday.

The song "Happy Birthday to You" was originally written by sisters Mildred and Patty Hill as "Good Morning to You." The words were changed and it was published in 1935.

George Washington is the only man whose birthday is a legal holiday in every state of the US as of a few years ago.

From 1834-1837, the US President and UK Prime Minister had the same birthday: Andrew Jackson and Lord Melbourne were both born on March 15.

Birthday cakes only became popular in the UK after 1836 when the Births and Deaths Registration Act demanded a record of birth rather than just a church register of baptism, and people began to know their birthdays.

November 2nd is the only day of the year that was the birthday of two US presidents: Warren Harding (born 1865) and James Polk (1795).

Both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on February 12, 1809.

The first washing machines designed for use in the home was built by William Blackstone of Indiana as a birthday present for his wife.

All racehorses in the U.S. celebrate their birthday on January 1st.

On his 100th birthday the jazzman Eubie Blake (1883-1983) said: “If I’d known I was gonna live this long I’d have taken better care of myself.”

Horror movie stars Christopher Lee and Vincent Price both had May 27th birthdays. Peter Cushing missed joining them by one day: his birthday was May 26th.

For his 11th birthday, Elvis Presley asked for a bicycle. Instead, his father bought him a guitar.

Taylor Swift's birthday is December 13th. She has a Christmas-themed birthday party every year.The Curiosity Mars Rover sings "Happy Birthday" to itself every year on August 5th, which is when it landed on Mars.You share your birthday with about 19 million other people around the world.According to some 2012 research at Harvard University, September 16 is the most common birthday in the USA. Thee years later, research by the greetings card company Moonpig confirmed that the same is true in the UK.The least common birthday date in both the UK and USA (apart from February 29th) is December 25th. In North Korea, people don't celebrate birthdays on July 8 and December 17, since those are the dates that Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il died.Jehovah's Witnesses don't celebrate birthdays because the only two accounts of birthday parties in the Bible ended in murder. If 23 people are in a room, there is a greater than even chance that two share a birthday.